Winter 2005

chilli

That looks cold

This looks so cute!

No Marguerite, this is the garden in winter before we moved here and hadn't yet started work on the land. The small building has been "done up," had it's roof lifted a little and stores the boiler and butane container for the central heating, plus all gardening equipment and tools and is also a store for our harvest of onions, potatoes and herbs; apples, pears and chestnuts given to us by our neighbours.

The mess of scrubby trees to the left no longer exists giving us a clear view over the meadow, and the jumble of rocks beneath the trees was the fallen-down wall holding back the mountain, which is now a new smarter stronger wall. The hazelnut tree has been pruned and gave us a wonderful harvest this year.

do you get loads of snow? Nariz?

Hi Sandra. We did get a lot more snow this winter than last year. That year I remember we often had a salad lunch on the balcony wearing T-shirts! This year we've been snuggling up round our wood fire eating hearty soup or warming stews! Now that it's beginning to warm up a little the rivers have been bursting with all the melt-water from the snow on the mountains and the usual anglers fishing for trout or salmon have been non-existent.

my sister has just driven over the pyreneese camper. she said it was the most glorious site ever.

Thanks for your comments Sandra and glad your sister had a good time but, I'm always having to explain this - we don't live in the Pyrenees. There is a range of mountains that runs along the north coast of Spain and approximately 25 kms inland called the Cordillera Cantabrica. The Picos de Europa is a small part of that range and our village is just in the Picos. The mountains in the photo that appears in my latest blog are called the Sierra de Pena Sagra and they are the beauties that stop the bad coastal weather getting into our lovely Liebana valley which has its own micro-climate. Quite often when we have a lovely day we'll decide to go to a beach, only to find the weather on the coast side of the mountains to be at least 8 degrees cooler and quite a lot wetter! So we tend to stay in the valley where, if the sun is shining, we can be assured that it will last until sundown. The local people claim it is also the most fertile valley for miles around. We're certainly not complaining!